


A Stall Story

by tumbleweedchaser



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Hogwarts bathroom graffiti, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Mostly Fluff, One Shot, Oops I wrote this, characters writing fan-fic, kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-25 23:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12046317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tumbleweedchaser/pseuds/tumbleweedchaser
Summary: In 8th year, Hermione picks up the art of writing anonymous fan-fiction via graffiti in bathroom stalls. Fans request she write a piece about herself and Draco.____Look, I dunno, it's mostly just fluff I guess. The first  few lines are misleading to the rest of the story.





	A Stall Story

_Draco hovered above her, his naked body so close she could feel the heat of his skin. He pressed his erection closer to her, “Hermione,” he said, looking in her eyes, “please, can I?”_

_“Yes,” she answered, rolling her hips forward to close whatever gap was left between them, “I want you to.”_

Hermione halted her writing. She blinked down at the page, her face red as ripe tomato. How in the hell had this happened?

It had started innocently enough. She frowned at the thought. Okay, maybe not innocently but impersonally enough. Honestly, she’d just commented on the poor grammar of ludicrous bathroom wall graffiti and now, well, she looked down at what she’d just written and wiggled uncomfortably in her chair. 

Returning to Hogwarts after the war had felt like an excellent idea at the time, and she was hardly the only one to continue her schooling. Many muggleborns had elected to return; many slytherins had been required to. For the most part, everyone stuck to their studies. Draco Malfoy isolated himself, the muggleborns kept to each other, the slytherins made odd attempts at redeeming their names, and anyone else just stayed out of the awkward tension that was 8th year as best they could. Hermione, however, was bored and restless. Returning to books and studies after, well, everything she supposed—it all just seemed tedious. 

By chance, Hermione had stepped into that stall and noticed what seemed to be some form of rotating pornographic story about two famous quidditch players. Each line was added by a different girl, progressing the fantasy further, but the grammar was so horrid Hermione could barely read the dribble. Before she even fully realized what she was doing she’d started marking the work of her fellow students. Halfway down the story, she hesitated at the realization and then completed her corrections, placing a failing mark at the bottom.

Nearly a week later, she found herself in the stall again (she told herself it was coincidence, but curiosity had driven her there). Another girl had written angrily next to her angry ‘F’. She read the slanted response, “If ur so smart y don’t u right it?” Several agreements from other readers and co-authors followed. Hermione had huffed with annoyance, as if she would waste her time on such nonsense.

That night though, as she’d stayed up studying, she began to feel her mind drifting away from the materials in front of her. A brain break, she told herself, just a silly practice is all. She pulled out a clean piece of parchment, dipped her quill, and proceeded to rewrite the bathroom fiction but with vivid detail, imagery, and proper grammar thank you very much. By the time she was done, over an hour had passed and it was well past one in the morning. 

Slightly embarrassed to have gotten so caught up in the task, she charmed the parchment to keep the content hidden and stuffed it into a side pocket of her bag. She surrendered to her bed for sleep.

Hermione hadn’t planned to share it. And yet, she returned to the stall and saw the bitter comments left by the other girls. Oh hell, she thought, why not? She pulled the parchment from her bag, cast a charm she’d used once or twice in her escapades with the boys to alter the handwriting ever so slightly, and then used another charm to shift the ink from the parchment to the stall wall. Just like that, she had published anonymous bathroom pornography about two quidditch players she’d never heard of prior to using that toilet. She smiled at her handiwork, certainly it was something of a thrill. 

Hermione had failed to anticipate the response of her classmates.

Like so many criminals, Hermione returned to the scene, curious to know if anyone had commented, perhaps even added to the story. Comment they had. Some called her a show-off, others laughed at the previous writers being shown-up, a few had found errors in her own writing—gleefully pointing out flaws where she had become distracted by the content. Most surprising was the praise. There was a lot of it. A side-argument had spiraled off on its own and captured Hermione’s attention. 

Someone had requested another piece, something involving a first kiss between Gilderoy Lockhart and another wizard adventurer. A few others criticized the pairing, far more furthered the request. Some claimed Gilderoy’s heart could never belong to an adventurer named Cristoph, but that he should be with a witch by the name of Drizzella. 

Lockhart? Hermione thought, did people really even still enjoy his books? The other two were somewhat famous in their own rights, both having made some rather recent discoveries. Still, it was nice to have people praising her creative work. Something of the location and anonymity made it feel more genuine. It was rather fun, she had to admit, writing something so far from academic and publishing it in this manner. What would be the harm in writing about a first kiss?

It might have served Hermione well to remember a children’s book her mother had read to her long, long ago. The book had warned, “If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to ask for a glass of milk.” Hermione’s short story was all of four hundred words. It was mushy and involved Lockhart stumbling into Cristoph in the middle of some tomb, injuring himself in the process. Cristoph was forced to treat him without magic and it all got rather poetic after that. 

Her audience loved it. More importantly, they loved that she’d taken a request. Within a week, the girls of Hogwarts had created a polling system on the back of the stall door. Which favorite couple would be next? The names and couples were mostly quidditch stars or fictional characters from popular books. She was somewhat startled to see “Tonks and Prof. Lupin: family fic” appear, though few others seemed interested.

Within a month, the girls of Hogwarts and their favorite author had developed a strange sort of system. The request list stood in place, and Hermione would use the most voted for item to compose a short piece. She’d remove the tally marks, but not the item itself from the list. If that particular thing was voted to the top again, she would continue the story in some fashion. 

The stories ranged in length, location, and content. Some preferred sweeter, simpler pieces. Others preferred the pornography that had led them to this predicament in the first place. There were too many stories for them all to stay in one stall, so she began transposing the work to other stalls. Some girl or another would write which bathroom and stall number the story had appeared in on the tally list. Hermione was baffled by how quickly this happened. 

It was somehow the best-kept secret that every girl in all of Hogwarts knew. Hermione sought out and quickly mastered an age-line spell, allowing only those fifteen to twenty years old to read the adult materials. Still, it was only a few weeks before a teacher noted some of the commentary graffiti or fluff works and removed it, but the girls were quick to fill the space with recaps of the stories thus far. Eventually, some had even copied the works onto parchment which they shared quietly with other girls. Hermione made a point to add her charms for secrecy to the stall door, and the illicit materials remained well hidden in plain sight.

The requests took a different turn after the winter holidays. Ginny and Harry became a suddenly high-interest couple, though requests featuring them remained primarily fluff. Other members of the order began to appear on the list, as did various death eaters, but rarely did a pairing make it past a few short, awkward chapters of mostly first kisses or subtle entwinements before readers got bored and moved on to something else.

Then, one day, in black ink which seemed to mock her very existence, was the request “Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy—consensual make out session.” Nothing had ever gained so many tallies so quickly!

If she didn’t write it, that would be suspicious. Wouldn’t it? After a great deal of debate and nervousness and out-right repulsion of the idea, she let her mind drift onto it. The piece she produced was short, cliché, and boring in her opinion. Trapped in a broom cupboard for no very apparent reason, the two confess an attraction, they make-out, and they’re freed from their entrapment, end of story.

Except that it was extremely popular.

Again, the tallies filled in faster than she could hardly believe. The development of the story, of these two characters, became a central focal point of not only the bathroom stalls but of outside conversation. In hallways she overheard girls gossiping about “D & H,” and “could you believe what happened in the last chapter?" What a ridiculous, ludicrous story it was! There was hardly any content of value, but rather tediously difficult-to-write sessions of detention and tutoring that always seemed to lead to Draco and Hermione kissing each other in increasingly promiscuous ways. 

In an effort to distract herself from these inevitable paragraphs of locked-lips and wandering hands, Hermione had begun to develop a subplot in the story. A conspiracy within the school involving curses left after the war. She demanded her character at least be intelligent, and Draco was admittedly not an idiot in terms of academics. Fine, the readers can have their fan service, but in return she got to at least write a mystery for herself.

Unfortunately, that only increased the popularity. Finally an avid fan had written next to the list item, “IT’s time they had SEX!” and then the tallies had spoken.

So here she was, staring down at an unbelievable scenario and feeling some unwanted effects to her loins. Writing about having sex with Draco Malfoy should not have been having this effect on her. She rarely had this problem when writing her other pieces—of course she was aroused by it at times but not like this! Her body was clearly confused. She’d get through it. 

And she did. She wrote what was perhaps the most awkward sex-fic she’d penned yet and then she’d gone to bed, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge her body’s calls to fulfill its need to be touched.

Her fans loved it. Apparently the awkwardness between the two was “spot on,” “exactly how that would happen,” “romantic and sexy and cute!” and, her personal favorite, “two great 4 words.” 

Fans called for more plot line next, and that was something she could gladly focus on. Of course, eventually, her more lecherous fans demanded their own needs be met. 

The third time she’d written about her character and Draco’s having sex, this time while hidden in an empty classroom—desperately touching each other but attempting to complete the act in silence (both forgetting the option of magic)—Hermione had taken a shower in the middle of the night in an effort to disguise her all-too-real moans as she let her fingers replicate the movements she’d written on behalf of Draco. 

And so it went on. 

Hermione was often considered too prudish, too focused on her studies to involve herself with the Stall Stories. Once or twice a few of her peers had attempted to discuss them and Hermione had feigned annoyance at the dribble. 

While the boys at the school had been blissfully unaware of the girls’ obsessions (though they were likely reaping the benefits), copies of the story starring Draco and Hermione had begun to pass from female hands to male ones. 

Hermione received a few unwanted advances, which she swiftly ended with a punch and reminder that she was not whatever fictional character was roaming about the school’s bathroom stalls. Draco, on the other hand, was already so isolated that, while some girls may have imagined the characteristics granted to him in the story to be true, they were unwilling to approach him in reality. 

It was a fourth year hufflepuff that approached him at breakfast and gently handed him parchment copies of the story’s many chapters, informed him to read it by himself, and told him they thought he should probably know what was going on.

Hermione had not been the only one in the great hall to notice the interaction, or the way Draco’s ears had turned red as he flipped through and skimmed the material before shoving it in his bag and exiting the great hall in a huff. 

In that moment the weight of everything she’d written, every inappropriate, criminal, terrible thing she’d written and published and spread seemed to crush her. That afternoon she wrote a simple statement on the tally door, “Due to proximity and heavy teacher monitoring, Stall Stories will no longer be produced.”

She made a point not to return to look at any comments that may have been left, but gossip in the hall expressed disappointment, paranoia, suspicion, and remorse for the lost story. The stories were removed by staff, and this time remained that way. Hermione kept waiting for further teacher interference, for something more than the crisis-control response the teachers had this far. Surely Draco would have complained? Demanded something more be done? Hermione certainly would have, had she not been the one writing them.

Of course, she should have suspected it would not take long for some other author to pick up where she left off. This author was far more focused on aspects of the physical relationship than Hermione had been, but did make some sad attempts at continuing the mystery plot Hermione had established. Readers seemed to agree the quality was not the same, but they were happy to have a continuation after the work had been abandoned.

For her part, Hermione did her best to return her focus to her studies. She did her best to ignore the gossip and discussion of the other students, choosing to read the literature in the library rather than in the bathroom. She did her best not to bristle when she overhead some rotten twist in her once thought-out plot or the description of some ludicrous sex act she could hardly imagine anyone be flexible enough to perform. A part of her hated this new author, or authors as the case might be. They were ruining her work. But she had abandoned it, it was best to simply ignore it and let it go.

This was exactly what she was attempting to do as she studied for her N.E.W.T.s. She’d gotten into the habit of studying in the library well into the night, after everyone else had returned to their dormitories. As it was more public than her own dorm, she found it easier not to stray back to old writing habits. Hermione scribbled notes onto her parchment, books spread out across a lamp-lit table, allowing her mind to be consumed by the texts in front of her. 

Perhaps that was why she didn’t hear him approach. It wasn’t until he leaned in closer, his lips by her ear, warm breath causing her to shiver even as she jumped in surprise. “How was it supposed to end?” he asked.

She was on her feet in an instant, wand at the ready, pointed at his unblinking face. Draco smiled ever so slightly, the hint of a laugh on his lips. It was the closest to happy she’d seen him in years. 

“What are you—when did you—why—what?” sputtered Hermione, she shook her head, “How was what supposed to end?”

This time he did laugh, a genuine one—not the evil snickers of his youth—and rested his hands on the chair she’d just been seated in. “The story, the one about us, you know it. You wrote it, right? I mean, not recently but, it’s your story, right?”

Hermione set her jaw, her lips pressing into a thin line. He didn’t seem angry, he wasn’t threatening her as far as she could tell. “Why do you think it was me?” she asked, “Why would I ever write something like that?”

“According to the slytherin girls, someone has been writing quite a lot. Would seem suspicious if such a popular couple was overlooked.”

She lowered her wand, crossing her arms and scowling at him, “That hardly serves as any kind of proof of it being me.”

“It’s your handwriting.”

“It most certainly is not!” replied Hermione, somewhat offended at the unintended insult to her spell-work.

“You’ve charmed it, slanted it and thickened the lines, but your capital ‘A’s give it away. Your lower case ‘g’ too.”

Hermione blinked at him, her mouth parting ever so slightly, a question on her lips but not quite forming.

“You flourish them. Your ‘A’ is always double crossed, the ‘g’ always has that long swish on the tail, looping into the letters next to it.”

Hermione might have been wrong, perhaps it was just the dim light, but she would have sworn Draco blushed, his eyes darting away from her, as he shifted his feet nervously. “How do you…”

“I noticed it a long time ago,” said Draco, turning his gaze to the table, “stands out after all, it’s pretty. Reminds me of you.” He inhaled deeply, as if just realizing what he’d said, his gaze darted towards her and back down at the table. “You’re the only one I know that does that,” he continued, “and the story, the lines are different but the flourishes are still there.”

Hermione stared at him for a moment, stunned by his observation. Finally she cleared her throat and answered, “A kiss,” she said.

Draco looked back up, eyes on hers, “What?”

She shook her head and relaxed her body, leaning her hip onto the table, “The story. It was going to end with a kiss. Our characters would find the source of the curses and destroy the items. But, they would release dark magic, a sort of fog causing the anger between muggleborns and pure-bloods to increase. Our characters would end the new form of the curse with a kiss. The bond and love between them would dispel the negative magic.”

Draco leaned forward on the chair, “That’s delightfully cheesy,” he said with a smirk, “but perfect.”

Hermione smiled at him, trying to keep herself from beaming with pride at the compliment. “You aren’t angry?”

“I was at first, but,” he shrugged, “it was rather complimentary towards me really. Far kinder than I deserve.”

“Still though,” said Hermione, “I crossed a line, I shouldn’t have, I’m sorr—“

Draco was suddenly much closer to her, a finger on her lips, “Don’t.”

She stared at him in surprise but also awe. His words were firm, his eyes a mix of passion and concern. “Please don’t apologize,” he said, finger still pressed to her lips.

Hermione felt a blush rise in her cheeks, a small tremor in her hand, a shaky breath escaped her. Draco became all too aware of his sudden proximity, of their contact, and stiffened his muscles for a moment before relaxing once again. His hand softened, his other fingers reaching out to caress her cheek and come to a rest gently on her neck, his thumb tracing her bottom lip.

“I enjoyed it,” he said with a shaky breath. Hermione was certain now she wasn’t imagining the blush on his cheeks. “At first I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I was upset and embarrassed, and then I noticed the flourishes. Your flourishes. I read it again. And then again, all the while stunned that you’d written about us in that way. To think you’d been thinking of me, thinking of me touching you, I, um…” 

Something she’d been repressing awakened in her. Hermione realized how much she was leaning into him, how warm he was, how close, how much his desire showed on his face. She could easily bring one of her scenes to life here, with nothing but the books to witness it. “Was it just the sex?” she asked, “Was it just the sex you liked?”

Draco shook his head, the concern returning to his eyes. He began to pull his hand away, but couldn’t seem to bring the tips of his fingers away from her skin. “No,” he said, “I mean, what you write is, I mean, wow, but I love the story too. I love hearing the way your mind works, the complexity, the thoughts of your character. I like what you made me in that story. I wish I was more like the Draco you wrote.”

“He’s based on you.”

Draco scoffed, stepping away and letting his hand drop, “I fail to see it.”

“Liar.”

He looked back at her in silence, confusion written on his face.

“You wouldn’t be here right now, with me, having this conversation if you thought it was impossible,” she explained, “I really did base him on you. Handsome, intelligent, determined, loyal, cunning, athletic—no one could deny you those traits.”

“You make me sound like a hero.”

“Some heroes have bad beginnings,” said Hermione, stepping closer, reaching out for his hand. “You don’t have to be the Draco in the story, you can be like him if you want to be though. You have it all there already.”

Draco threaded his fingers into hers, softly holding her hand in his. His eyes trained themselves on their hands. Hermione leaned forward, her face entering his line of sight, and gave him a smile, “It threw me off guard, you know.”

“My question?”

“The story request,” she answered, “I had never thought about you, or us, in that way. I was shocked so many had, even more so that so many liked the idea.”

“It does seem an odd thought.”

“I struggled with it a great deal at first, and then I struggled even more when our characters became more…involved with each other. I mean, I’d never struggled with those types of scenes. They were simple, didn’t really stick with me after the writing process.”

“But?”

“Writing about you,” she said, closing the gap between them, “it was different. Got to be rather distracting. Once the idea was in my head, it was difficult to not think about it.”

Draco smiled at her, leaning towards her, “I know what you mean.”

“We do rather make an odd couple,” she said, “don’t we?”

“Yes,” he answered, closing what little space there was between them to gently kiss her, “I suppose we do.”


End file.
